rsh voice. He paused, and shading his eyes with his arched
hands, gazed towards the road.

Uniacke hurried through the narrow gate and joined his guest, who looked
like a man startled out of some heavy reverie.

"Oh, it is you," he said. "Well, I--"

"You were going to watch the sea, I know. It is worth watching to-day.
Come with me. I'll take you to the point--to the nigger."

"The nigger?"

"The fishermen call the great black rock at the north end of the Island
by that name. The sea must be breaking magnificently."

Uniacke took Sir Graham's arm and led him away, compelling him almost as
if he were a child. They left the churchyard behind them, and were soon
in solitary country alone with the roar of wind and sea. Branching
presently from the road they came into a narrow, scarcely perceptible,
track, winding downward over short grass drenched with moisture. The
dull sheep scattered slowly from them on either side of the way.
Presently the grass ceased at the edge of an immense blunt rock, like a
disfigured head, that contemplated fixedly the white turmoil of the sea.

"A place for shipwreck," said Sir Graham. "A place of death."

Uniacke nodded. The painter swept an arm towards the sea.

"What a graveyard! One would say the time had come for it to give up its
dead and it was passionately fighting against the immutable decree. Is
Jack somewhere out there?"

He turned and fixed his eyes upon Uniacke's face. Uniacke's eyes fell.

"Is he?" repeated Sir Graham.

"How can I tell?" exclaimed Uniacke, almost with a sudden anger. "Let us
go back."

Towards evening the storm suddenly abated. A pale yellow light broke
along the horizon, almost as the primroses break out along the horizon
of winter. The thin black spars of a hurrying vessel pointed to the
illumination and vanished, leaving the memory of a tortured gesture
from some sea-thing. And as the yellow deepened to gold, the Skipper set
the church bells ringing. Sir Graham opened the parlour window wide and
listened, leaning out towards the graves. Uniacke was behind him in the
room. Vapour streamed up from the buffeted earth, which seemed panting
for a repose it had no strength to gain. Ding dong! Ding dong! The wild
and far-away light grew to flame and faded to darkness. In the darkness
the bells seemed clearer, for light deafens the imagination. Uniacke
felt a strange irritability coming upon him. He moved uneasily in his
chair, watching the motionless, s